The Trump administration has cited concerns over Beijing’s scientific spying programme as the reason it wants to block a Chinese plan to build an $80m headquarters for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Ethiopia, amid growing competition for influence in the continent.

“It’s a threat to Africa. Africa has vast amounts of genomic data and the Chinese want to build the CDC to eventually steal the data from all the other centres,” an administration official told the Financial Times, referring to five regional Africa CDC hubs, some of which were built by the US. Based in Egypt, Nigeria, Gabon, Kenya and Zambia, they handle high-risk viruses, health crises, research and data collection.

The role of Africa CDC, launched in 2017 in the wake of the deadly 2014 west African Ebola crisis, is to respond to disease outbreaks including coronavirus. It is owned and part-funded by the African Union’s 55 members, with additional financial support from the US, China, the World Bank and other donors including Kuwait and Japan. Its secretariat is based at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. African foreign ministers are expected to discuss a new headquarters for the first time on Thursday.